I think you're onto something here, but not the whole story. There are indeed two senses of the verb, but they have different rules for forming the past tense.
The past tense of "shine" in the sense of "polish" is always "shined." ("He shined his shoes"; never "he shone his shoes.")
The past tense of "shine" in the sense of "glow or gleam" is "shined" if it's transitive ("he shined the flashlight on the wall") and "shone" if it's intransitive ("the sun shone").
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-17 06:27 pm (UTC)The past tense of "shine" in the sense of "polish" is always "shined." ("He shined his shoes"; never "he shone his shoes.")
The past tense of "shine" in the sense of "glow or gleam" is "shined" if it's transitive ("he shined the flashlight on the wall") and "shone" if it's intransitive ("the sun shone").